Following the weekend launch of the Tesla Model Y robotaxi, the company’s stock jumped nearly 10% on Monday, June 23. The Tesla robotaxi is expected to directly compete with Alphabet-backed Waymo, which already operates in several U.S. cities.
Stock jump
Tesla stock closed at $348.68 on June 23, its highest closing price in about a month and the largest gain in nearly two months.
That rally also boosted the net worth of founder and CEO Elon Musk by about $12 billion.
The company’s stock has had a very volatile year following Musk’s polarizing involvement in the Trump administration. The stock has reached as high as $428.22 while dropping as low as $221.86 back in April.
The stock has now risen about 24% since June 5, when Musk’s feud with President Donald Trump over provisions in the president’s tax and budget bill reached a tipping point.
Tesla reported a 20% drop in auto revenue during its first-quarter report, with total revenue falling 9% from the same period a year earlier. Second quarter results are expected sometime in July.
Robotaxi launch
The launch of the new robotaxis came on Sunday, June 22, in Austin, Texas. The people who participated in the launch included longtime Tesla fans, as well as promoters and shareholders.
Many of those generate income from Tesla content on social media and were included in a thread on X.
These initial rides cost users $4.20 per ride, and users were not in the cars alone. Each car had a human safety monitor riding in the passenger seat.
Tesla also posted on X that Tesla users can experience full self-driving in their own vehicles for $3.33 per day.
Robotaxi competition
The biggest competition for Tesla’s new robotaxis will be Waymo, which currently operates in four cities, including Austin.
A major difference between the two is Tesla’s use of cameras and AI to navigate, whereas Waymo relies on extensive sensor pods with lidar, radar and ultrasonic sensors.
CNBC reports Musk plans to target Los Angeles and San Francisco as the next cities to get robotaxis. Those are two of the four cities where Waymo operates, the others being Austin and Phoenix. Waymo currently has plans to expand its service to Miami and Atlanta.
